Ah yes. Space, the final frontier. Observe the beauty of the stars, the glow of infinite suns cast across the abysmal darkness of space. Then watch half your hull explode from under your feet... I welcome you to the realm of Battleships Forever.

This is a nice, simple yet fun, little instalment. The game is simple enough to keep you entertained, yet complex enough to keep you going. It is an easy game to learn, although I'm not quite sure how good you can get at it.

The idea is, you have a fleet of ships, and you use them to defeat your enemy. Each ship has certain attributes that help you, or don't help you. Some ships have stronger hulls than others, some excel at weapons others are fast. So in the end, you have a nice balance, and you need to figure out which ship is best for what situation. So far we have the strong foundation of a good strategy game.

The graphics make a good change from most games. You all know what I mean. Most space ships are either grey or black, floating among rocks, with nothing but a black screen for a background. But here, it's different. Everything is colourful and lively. It reminds me of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Although the graphics are colourful and fun, sub-systems such as turrets and deflectors are almost impossible to select in a fast paced battle where every second counts. It can be very annoying.

The story and music feel somewhat undone in my opinion. The story is told solely through text, and feels like a mediocre Sci-Fi plot. If you see enough movies, it will get boring really quick, but maybe the story isn't important here. The music on the other hand, gets repetitive but surprisingly never annoying. Its almost designed as the perfect loop.

Tactics are where the game gets a gold star. This isn't a game where you can just get the strongest unit in a massive quantity and steamroll the map. This is a more subtle tactical game (Remember Myth, anyone?). Some ships have very powerful forward shields and will do their best to keep them facing you. Then it's up to you to out manoeuvre and destroy. And you will need to do this quickly, as the enemy will outnumber you 5:1. And they have better ships... spoiler!

Another gold star is given for the editor. It has an intuitive interface, easy to use tools, although it feels somewhat rusty. You can create all the ships you want, and place them in battle. It's fun to see your creations sweep the map clean, or burn!

However, the frustration of micro-management drops the rating below 4. It feels in dire need of improvement. Even with the provided hotkeys, it's almost impossible to coordinate a large fleet efficiently against an even larger fleet. If you remember cartoons where a large group of people fight, and the fight becomes a hail of dust. Well this is what happens here, though the people are destroyers and the dust is huge array of explosions. Overall I'd say, give it a go. It's fun, doesn't eat up a lot of time and is entertaining.